Long Bus Ride and our Time in Mikumi

We woke up on Sunday, May 14th, to get some money, snacks, and water for the next leg of our journey: a 6+ hour bus ride.

Still not recovered from our exhaustive first week, I slept for the first 3 hours.

A dependable little bus

Stuck with Celine Dion playing on an endless loop

I woke up just in time for our lunch stop. We had spinach, meat from an animal I don't recall, and rice, all covered in hot chili sauce. This was the moment I realized my love of spicy foods, something I had heavily avoided persistently in the past.


What made the ride worth it was the wildlife. Not only did I get to see a giraffe for the first time, we got to see a dozen of them!

Also, we came across a very rare sight: a lion and lioness relaxing by the side of the road!

She's literally just sleeping

We arrived at the Mikumi VETA college late that night, under the cover of darkness and a very heavy rain. Despite these less than welcoming things, our team was so happy to get settled into our accommodations. (especially me, as I got a king sized bed all to myself)


Monday we woke up bright and early to join in the college faculty role call.

We spent the morning first sitting in on a class taught by Ludovic Saronga, a long known partner between VETA Mikumi and NSCC. We then interviewed several of the students on their cultural backgrounds and were surprised by some of the answers we got.

A skull outside the classroom

In the afternoon, we went to a local school and talked in front of the students to explain what our project was, what we were doing, and also to persuade them to come to the open house the VETA college was putting together that Wednesday (yesterday for me).

Many of the students bike to and from school, but many of those walking got a

 ride with us, which was lovely

Tuesday, we got a tour around the campus and spoke to a few classes about ourselves and our work.

In the afternoon we went to a village across the street and I personally interviewed an elder, who was also a performer. We watched a dance, heard him sing, and then saw a young contortionist show off his skills.

Wednesday we helped out at the college showcase / open house. We had a table for our team where we displayed a short video we edited days before of some footage we had recorded throughout the previous week.

We recorded a lot of great footage of performances and tables and people.

Some stills of the dancing performance

Later that day we finally got to a snake park to see some deadly creatures. I loved seeing the black mambas and Egyptian cobras, as well as alligators and turtles.

True love

Later that night, the moon looked wonderful and beautiful, so we got some pictures.

Photo by Erica Meus-Saunders

One afternoon we came back to the house we were staying at to see what was essentially an army of monkeys. They hid and ran and climbed and were harder to get footage of than you would think. But they were so nice to see.

We were also greeted by some less welcome company:

                                                  So many disgusting creepy legs.